In Dreams and Death
by everLI7
Summary: Colluinice is a young elleth with a strange prophecy. When she is kidnapped by the Nazgul, she knows that no one will find her, because no one knows she is gone. Can her mysterious dreams save her- or are they only dreams? AU, Frodo/OC. Not a 10th walker.
1. Chapter 1- Imladris, TA 1975

Author's Note: Hi to anyone who's reading this!

This is my first fanfic, so yay!

Reviews would be absolutely awesome, so please review (you don't have to like it to review! I'll take criticism)

Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings, I only own OCs such as Lucie. And Lothcrist- but that doesn't appear yet.

Chapter 1: Imladris, Third Age 1975

She was curled up in the branches of the tree nearest to the valley entrance, as she so often was these days. The dragon book in her hands would, on any other day, have had her complete concentration. On this day she barely understood what she was reading, for her thoughts so often strayed towards Angmar and the battles raging there. Impatiently she watched and listened for any sign of the returning warriors of Imladris, if they were to return.

She was a young elleth still, of age but little more than that. Often she would be mistaken (by intention or by accident) for a child. In all her years, she had grown little past her height as an elfling.

Her name was Colluinicë Fírcenedril. As a child she had been more often called Lucie, and the few who knew her well had never been much inclined to lengthen her name again, whether she was of age or not of age.

At this moment she had begun thinking of apples, and rather mourning that there was not an apple-tree nearby, and wondering whether she ought to leave her 'post' and search out some luncheon. It was past midday and Lucie had barely eaten breakfast in her haste to come out to this tree and watch.

As it turned out, this question was not to matter much, for there in the distance she saw them- the forces of Imladris returning home. There in the distance she heard them coming.

Her heartbeat quickened madly, and not entirely from excitement. It was only when she saw them that she began to fear whether or not Ada or Amathel or Amdiron would be among them.

Lucie shut the dragon book and rested it on a nearby branch, where it was utterly forgotten.

Barely breathing, she waited. Purple eyes scanned faces rather desperately until she saw her ada, battle-weary but well. She sucked in a deep, contented breath and leaned back against the tree.

Before a terribly long while had passed, the warriors began to march back into the valley of Imladris.

"Mae govannen!" Lucie called, as was her custom. Most turned towards her, cheered by her merry childish call, and shouted the greeting back to her. "Mae govannen!"

She climbed down to the lowest branch and stood upon it, waiting again until Ada came near her tree. "Ada! Mae govannen!" she called.

He looked up and smiled at her. "Mae govannen, iellig!" He opened his arms for an embrace, as he always did, and Lucie jumped down to him.

"What of Angmar?" she asked.

"Angmar has fallen," Ada said. "And-before you ask-it was not nearly so beautiful as our lovely Imladris."

Lucie nodded solemnly. "I do not imagine it was."

He smiled. "Lucie- you can tell your Nana that we can sail, now that I will not be needed to fight Angmar."

"Nana will be pleased."

"Good. Now run along and tell her, little one." He set her back on the ground. "I will come find both of you shortly."

"I am of age, Ada! I am not little!" she cried indignantly as she skipped away.

...

Tatharion watched his daughter fondly. Child or not, it hardly mattered now. In a matter of days, she would be safe forever.


	2. Chapter 2- Imladris, TA 1975

**Hi again, everyone! I had some extra time today, so I thought I would give you all another update!**

**Lots of thanks to all my reviewers!**

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**Disclaimer: Lord of the Rings does not belong to me. Only my OCs, and Lothcrist (which still does not appear) are mine.**

"Nana! Nana!" Lucie cried, dashing into their dwelling.

Cellinneth looked up from her painting with distant grey eyes. A gifted singer in past days, her voice had rarely been lifted in song since she had been struck by sea-longing several years ago. Now she spent her days with countless shades of blue paint, for the ocean, and sometimes grey when she set ships upon the waves. Only love had kept her here this long. She would have seen all bonds to Middle Earth severed, years ago, had there not been the war.

"Nana?"

"Lucie." It took too long, these days, for voices to drift through the sounds of the sea.

"Ada is safe and well. He has returned from Angmar. It is a victory."

Cellinneth listened vaguely. "Who did you say has victory, iellig?"

"Imladris," Lucie said, and after a moment, clarified. "We do, Nana."

"Is your ada unhurt?"

"He is well. He returned today and will come to us soon. He said that he is free to sail now that the war is over."

"Sail?" Cellinneth dropped her paintbrush. "Did he truly say so?"

"Yes, Nana. He did."

"Oh, wonderful!" She lifted her daughter into a joyous, cerulean-smudged embrace.

* * *

"He did, Nana. Please let me breathe."

Nana set her back on the floor. "You look quite blue today, little one," she remarked, sounding almost like she used to.

"As do you, Nana." As you have looked for far too long, Lucie might have said, but did not. It might have amused her, had it not been so true, and for so many years.

She longed to hear Nana singing merrily again. She simply began to wonder, now that the thought of the ships was so near, whether her wish for those songs was great enough to take her to the Undying Lands.


	3. Chapter 3- Imladris, TA 1975

"Mae govannen, Cellinneth, and Lucie." Ada's voice sounded hollow.

Lucie was plucking despondently at her harp; Nana had already returned to her painting. "Mae govannen," Lucie said, just as gloomily. The thought of sailing did not entirely agree with her.

Ada came over to her and knelt, so that his face was at her eye level. "Iellig," he said, voice and eyes grave. "I need you to speak with Amathel."

This was not about sailing, then. She looked up from her harp-strings and met his gaze. "Why?"

"This will be hard for you to hear. It is hard for all of us." He sucked in a breath. "Amdiron...was mortally-" he winced, this time not from the subject he spoke of "-_severely_ wounded fighting Angmar. We brought him back to Imladris, but he died not long ago."

"Oh..." Tears welled up in her purple eyes, and she felt rather guilty; she wished now that this _had_ been about sailing, and not because there was fell news to bring. Amdiron had been a dear friend of hers. He always..._had always_...had something hopeful to say when she cried, and often some little amusing tale from far-off lands so that she laughed through her tears. But not this time. Not ever again, unless she sailed, and waited until he was returned from the Halls of Mandos.

One more thing drawing her there...or one more thing that she might never see come to pass.

"Amathel is not taking it well," Ada went on, breaking Lucie away from her thoughts. "She was wounded also, by a poisoned arrow, but she will not leave Amdiron's side and refuses to let her wound be healed."

Amathel and Amdiron were betrothed. Lucie nodded silent acknowledgement.

"It is hoped that you can coax Amathel to listen to reason, Lucie. Will you see her?"

She swallowed. "I-I will," she choked out. "Where is Amathel?"

Ada brushed the tears off of her cheeks. "I will take you there. No," this he said as Lucie's gaze flicked to the chest where her wooden training sword was kept. "Do not take Lothcrist. Amathel is injured."

Lucie nodded, slipped her small hand into his larger one, and let him lead her away.

"We are leaving to see Amathel, Cellinneth," Ada said as they left, though both knew that his words would not be heard.

* * *

Amdiron lay with a sheet pulled nearly to his chin, his wounds covered. Amathel knelt beside him, her head resting on his unmoving chest, her golden locks spilling over him. Cold dead fingers were entwined with warm living ones.

"Amathel," Lucie said, her voice barely above a whisper.

The grieving elleth lifted her head at the familiar voice. There was a bloody but healing gash across her cheek, and no tears. Amathel's grey-blue eyes were never rainstorms; they were thunderstorms, but the thunder had vanished from them.

"I do not intend to listen," the voice was not Amathel's for it was too soft and vulnerable, and yet it still came from her lips.

There was an unnerving silence. Lucie realized that Amdiron might not be the only one dead.

She tried to speak, tried to think of anything to say. She was shy, and though she well knew the few around her, the absence of Amdiron and his cold body lying there was strange and intimidating.

She looked back at Ada, who nodded encouragement to her.

Lucie thought desperately as the moments passed, too long, for here she was, standing here feeling helpless, and too short, for every wasted minute drained away Amathel's time on Middle-Earth. Then she thought of ships.

"You-" her voice echoed faintly, hollow and empty. She swallowed and began again. "You used to swear that you would never leave Middle Earth unless you were slain beyond healing."

Time crept by, slow and silent.

"Yet what now awaits me here if I cannot have _him_ by my side?" Amathel lifted her left arm and studied it almost idly. Lucie now saw that the arm was free of armor, with an arrow embedded just below her elbow and black streaks running across her skin. The wound looked painful but must have been far outweighed by the pain in her heart. "And so I will be slain, by poison, but more by grief. What healing can be found for that? Is there here a balm for aching hearts? What harm can this arrow now do me save to take me to him? I would consider that no injury."

"It would come at a high price, Amathel. There is much in these lands to remain for, which you would likely know more than I." Lucie knew that was true for herself as well. _Is it worth leaving this world behind to hear Nana sing again?_ That thought felt selfish, disloyal, and heavy with guilt, but there seemed to be a certain logic to it.

There would be time, though perhaps not enough, for those thoughts later. Lucie would not allow her mind to travel that path while poison seeped unchecked into Amathel's veins.

She herself missed Amdiron greatly; the agony of Amathel, who loved him so, must be unimaginable. She tried to look at things the way Amathel must see them. _Had I lost the one I have not yet seen, what would dissuade me from searching- from_ following _him?_

It would not be the same, not at all, and she wondered if anything could suffice. _Is there anything else I could care about then? Is there anything Amathel could care about now? What, to her, matters more than life or death, or grief?_

_Him. Amdiron._

Perhaps Amathel's was the wrong view for her to examine. What did Amdiron think of this?

He had been wounded on the battlefield, but survived to reach Imladris. He must have known he would die.

She could not recall a time when something needed to be said, and he had not said it. Therefore he must have spoken to Amathel...

"What did Amdiron say to you?"

Silence.

She began to doubt- what if he had said nothing, and her question was like a misguided incision that brought pain and had no purpose in healing? _I cannot see hope for Amathel._ She glanced back at Ada.

He read the despair in her eyes her eyes and shook his head, as if to say, _No. You must._

Lucie drew a deep breath and crept closer to her friend. She lifted a hand, paused unsurely, then placed the hand on the elder elleth's shoulder.

Amathel looked up, startled.

"What did he say to you, Amathel?" she asked softly.

Amathel's eyes slipped shut and tears seeped through her lashes. Her lips moved almost imperceptibly, her voice so soft that it seemed more a breath than words. "He said that he loved me, and he was sorry, and that I should not come for him yet. He said that I should live my adventures so that someday he could live them, too, through my retelling, that he would rather have come with me, but he did not want me to forfeit my dreams merely for his sake." She stopped, and simply wept, and breathed.

Lucie still stood by her friend's side, not sure of what action to take, other than none. As she waited, she mused sorrowfully over the words. _He did not want me to forfeit my dreams merely for his sake._ It was not the same for her, not at all, for Amathel and Amdiron would be reunited in Valinor, though it might be long ages hence. She herself did not have that same certainty... _but why do I dwell on my own affairs in this somber time? It is rather heartless of me._

"He did not say how much this would hurt," Amathel whispered. "I find it a far simpler course to succumb to my wound, and meet him in the Halls of Mandos ere he is released. I know not how long I would need wait if I sought him in life, nor how I could live without seeking him."

A heart, set on a path, was a difficult thing to quell.

"You must try, for when has Amathel wished to take the easier road?"

"I would trust that he could forgive me for it. But," she said, sounding suddenly resigned, "what sort of last adventure is a quest to simply ask death to take me?" A flash of her spirited lightning flickered briefly in her raincloud eyes. "I would rather my last deed in these lands be one the minstrels sing of, and a pretty tale to tell him, ere I depart in fame and glory! Yet I fear that battle may seem the least daunting of my tasks."

Lucie's heart leaped, for here again was Amathel, though perhaps not quite the Amathel she knew. The Amathel of her past was as a blade which, however many thousand years past her forging, still glowed with red fire. Now that sword had been cooled in tears and hardened to sharp, glinting steel. She was Amathel nonetheless.

"Will you have that healed, then?"

Amathel glanced at her arm and wrapped her right hand around the arrow-shaft, tugging slightly as if considering pulling it out herself. She grimaced in pain and thought better of it. "I will." She looked back to Amdiron's unmoving form, and most of what made her _Amathel_ vanished from her posture, for that fire and steel could not exist alongside mourning. "I will at that. But let me alone first, to bid him farewell. You need not fear for me."

"Come, Lucie," said Ada, the first he had spoken in a long while, and Lucie came. Ada led her away, but still she felt the echoes of that solemn place.

In the privacy of her own chambers, Lucie let herself collapse with sobs, weeping for what was, and what had been, and what would never be.

* * *

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**Disclaimer: I don't own Lord of the Rings. Obviously.**


	4. Chapter 4- Imladris, TA 1975

**Hi!**

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**Disclaimer: I don't own LOTR. (Obviously!)**

* * *

Though Amathel's wound was healed, and would no longer endanger her, it had been left untended for too long to heal completely. Black streaks twisted across her arm, glimmering through her skin, and would never fade.

"Is that painful?" Lucie wondered, curious and concerned, the first time she beheld it.

"No," said Amathel, calm but rather mournful. "Nor does it mar my skills. Yet the look of it is rather evil, as an unwelcome piece of Angmar caught in my flesh, when I would far rather that cruel iron be forgotten." Ever after she would wear a long, tight sleeve on that arm, though not the other, in order to conceal the revolting sight.

Two rings she wore as well; silver rings, betrothal rings. One was her own and one Amdiron's, to keep a memory of him ever close and to bring it to him if she sailed. If she perished in Middle-Earth, then the rings would remain together, and new rings would be made in Valinor.

Amathel lingered in Imladris only briefly, two days past her release from the healing ward, and three since her return. On that day was a ceremony to honor the brave fallen, which she attended, but wept not, as was her nature. Barely an hour past its end she was prepared to depart. Only Lucie witnessed her departure.

"I ride East. Though I go where I may die on orc-swords, I will not remain where I would surely fade of heartbreak even if you were to counsel me otherwise until the Sun fades. I would remain to see you off, but my heart would not be there."

"I understand," said Lucie, for she did. She had seen the meaning far too many times in the glassy eyes of her mother. "I will miss you, Amathel."

"As will I. Namárië, Lucie. May we meet again."

"Namárië."

Amathel mounted her steed, looked back once and rode away.

Lucie watched her departure sorrowfully, musing over ships and fate as she had become accustomed to in recent days. _May we meet again._ It was no certainty.

Did she want it to be?

* * *

Though Lucie's spirits were lower, the mood in her house was certainly brighter. Nana had begun using cheerful, vivid blues and her work was far clearer, as if she could see the waves and ships just before her. More than that, she could be coaxed away from her paints in those last two days, and on occasion smiled lucidly.

Ada was sorting, deciding which of his things and Nana's were important and irreplaceable enough to bring with them, and what could be left behind and not be missed much.

Lucie was battling her internal disagreements, resolved to resign herself to leaving. She carried out her own sorting with neither joy nor complaint, and discovered that there were surprisingly few treasures she was loath to part with.

Her _Lay of Lúthien_ book she pondered over many times, but in the end decided to leave behind. It would not have the same meaning to her were she to read it in Valinor.

Though that decision she had made, and held to firmly after that, Lucie did not forget, and continued to wonder.

_Should I have left it? Should I have even left at all?_

Long years later, she would still wonder. Long years later, she would still mourn her choice.

* * *

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